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From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the i

From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't actually hurt them since they have such a strange-hold on online retail, and even with these issues they do still offer the best service by far, but it really seems like Amazon needs some competition.

reificator 9y ago
Denver Metro here, I don't think Amazon have missed a two day window in at least a year. I've only had two misses in over three years of having a Prime sub.
matte_black 9y ago
I personally don’t even track my delivery times. I order things off amazon so quickly that most of the time when I get a package I had forgotten what I ordered, let alone exactly when I ordered it. It’s nice that packages come in two days but I often don’t really need something that fast so I don’t pay attention. I will continue paying happily for Prime.
- rando444 9y ago
  I'm failing to see how your anecdote about how you're happy to pay for something you admittedly don't care about is relevant.
  - zhjansbnas 9y ago
    Amazon, when considering whether to raise the price of prime, probably gathered a lot of information about how consumers would respond. Matte_black’s experience mirrors my own. When I order something from Prime with 2-day shipping, it’s sometimes late, and sometimes shows up the next morning. It’s fast enough on average that I feel the price is easily worth it. If I really need something ASAP I’ll pay the extra few dollars for the one-day shipping (which would cost a lot more without Prime). They’d have to raise the price a lot more to lose me as a customer. If there are a lot of customers like me and matte_black, it makes sense for them to raise the price. By the way, if you do complain about late packages, they will give you a month of free Prime for each complaint or even put $10 as a credit in your account. So if it’s worth your time to complain, you could get Prime for free. It’s kind of like cloud provider who breaks SLA.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    In addition, there's also a very clear contradiction in their statement, specifically how they "often don’t really need something that fast" but yet they will continue paying happily for Prime. Maybe they only care about the other Prime services and not the shipping?
socalnate1 9y ago
I've had almost the exact opposite experience. I often get Prime deliveries the next day, even when I order in the late afternoon or evening. I'm in Southern California, so maybe the greater density here means different systems ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Also in SoCal, I get a mix of both. Usually two days, sometimes one, sometimes it says it is out for delivery on that second day but then they end up not delivering it. From what I understand, the Amazon delivery people are contractors who are paid to deliver as much as they can. If they can't get to everything that day before 9pm, you don't get your package. It has only really hurt me a couple of times where I ordered something for a trip, and it didn't arrive in time.
- AlexB138 9y ago
  It seems like it's regional, based on replies here. It seems everyone on the west coast gets pretty good delivery times. I'm in a major metro on the east coast, and my experience is shared by a lot of my friends.
strunz 9y ago
I'm going to guess you're in the minority.
icelancer 9y ago
Prime has only gotten better in my area, but that's a little biased, since I'm in Seattle. They can definitely jack up rates here with no issue.
deleted 9y ago
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fiter 9y ago
Sometimes I comparison shop at other online stores. It has not been uncommon to find the cost for an item at another store plus shipping is equal to or less than buying it with Amazon Prime. Am I really paying for movies and music which I hardly use?
- criddell 9y ago
  Amazon has been so consistent for me and given me such great customer service that I still buy from them even when they aren't the lowest price. I'm a pretty loyal customer.
lutorm 9y ago
In Hawaii, Prime isn't two day, it's "free shipping within sorta 5-7 business days, for most of the stuff marked Prime". And even that has gotten unreliable. When there's a range of delivery dates specified, it often seems designed to show up on the very last day of that range. A significant fraction of the time they haven't even shipped the thing by the first day of the delivery estimate. There are also an increasing amount of items that say they are Prime but when you try to buy them, it says "it can't be shipped to your address". Sometimes it's understandable, like things that are very heavy or hazardous, like Li-ion batteries. Other times it's completely incomprehensible, like 1/8" pipe fittings. And Amazon customer service can't give any info, they just say "sorry, we're not going to be able to send you that thing."
- underbluewaters 9y ago
  I couldn't get them to send me an xbox controller in Hawaii. It's just infuriating. They could at least have the decency to let you filter items you can't get. The mismatch between their listed terms and what you actually get as a Prime customer in Hawaii is borderline fraudulent. I'm considering putting together and sharing a script that could check your order history and delivery dates. They tend to give a free month of credit for late deliveries, but if I could show them "Well out of 12 months I've had late deliveries every month this year" I should just get the service for free.
  - matchbok 9y ago
    You cannot expect a company to cater to such a small population. You choose to live there, you choose the consequences.
    - underbluewaters 9y ago
      I can absolutely expect them to honor the terms that they themselves defined for a service that costs more than $100/year.
      - EpicEng 9y ago
ng12 9y ago
> Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products This is the only thing I worry about. Granted, I don't think I've personally ever gotten a knock-off but the fact that the possibility exists makes me much more cautious about ordering from amazon.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  Some items are much more prone to being counterfeit than others. If you order a Lego set, you're going to get a Lego set. But when it comes to industrial stuff, I can't even shop there anymore. Anything labeled as OEM (batteries, auto parts, etc) is a prime candidate for counterfeiting.
  - patrickxie 9y ago
    where can one find a trustworthy website for batteries?
asafira 9y ago
Unlike the other comments, I'd like to point out that I have had a similar experience with Amazon's 2-day shipping. I would claim that 1 in 3 packages have an issue of some sort that causes a delay.
underbluewaters 9y ago
Amazon shipping can be terrible depending on where you live. Here in Hawaii they claim 3-7 business days which they regularly don't meet. The pattern I've noticed is that they wait until the very last moment to ship and then use priority overnight to try and meet that deadline. I think they do this to try and pool shipments but it never works out that way. I count on all orders taking a full two weeks to arrive. I'd cancel Prime in a heartbeat if I had a remotely comparable alternative. They use to provide value in terms of making it easy to pick good products but the 3rd party seller thing has made this more difficult.
intermittently 9y ago
+1 on more late Prime deliveries than there used to be. FWIW, you can request a free month of Prime anytime you get a Prime order late (up to 12 times per subscription renewal, from what I've read). I've done it a few times already; once you find the customer service page, it's pretty painless.
- stinky613 9y ago
  Awesome tip, but I feel like I'm still shit out of luck with any Amazon purchase sent via USPS. Their drivers mark all their Amazon Prime packages as delivered if it's end of day. I've had multiple Amazon deliveries that were "delivered at 7:59pm at normal mail reception desk" that they then delivered the following day EDIT: Just want to make it clear that this isn't my isolated experience -- http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns-amazon-customers-will-get-free-stuff-if-mail-is-delivered-late http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns...
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    Yeah same here - except with fedex who wont even try to deliver. They'll just sneak up and leave tags saying they attempted. When I asked amazon about it they really didn't want to do much but I was able to get them to block using their own drivers who were completely clueless on what an entrance to a building looks like (tip: it's not the emergency exit door...)
monksy 9y ago
> From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. I'm noticing that too. If I'm going to go with standard shipping, they'll wait on it for 2 weeks and then try to ship it the day before the end of the delievery estimation. (I live in Chicago, so theres absolutely no reason to do that other than spite)
turtlebits 9y ago
I've only had 2 shipping delay issues with Amazon Prime in the last 4 years. Recently the option for 1 day shipping for a minimal fee or free has only made it better in my eyes. That said, I do live in the Greater Seattle area.
lancepioch 9y ago
Only a couple times over years have I gotten packages late. Contacting Amazon about it, they gave me a month of prime each time too. I live almost in the middle of nowhere, except that I'm less than an hour away from a major shipping distribution center.
robteix 9y ago
Here in my area, 2-day Prime means 3-4 days. Their guaranteed delivery date is always 4 days away, but about half the time you'll get it in 3. But they still call it "two-day delivery"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dawnerd 9y ago
  I think it now means two days from when they hand it off to usps/ups/fedex. There has been considerable delay recently from when the package is "shipped" and when it's handed over. Probably due to them using their own trucks and simply using the other carriers as the last mile.
skynetv2 9y ago
I barely had issues with 2-day, 1-day or even same day Prime (not Prime Now) deliveries in the Sacramento area. Probably becasue we have a huge UPS & Amazon hub here. once in a while they will miss the window but will notify right away and deliver it within the next day, pretty early in the day
greymeister 9y ago
When the courier service has switched from Fedex to OnTrac, my previous experience of 2 days or less went to 3 days minimum with the occasional "Whoops we gave it to the wrong person" thrown in for good measure.
cryptoz 9y ago
In both Oakland and Colorado, I have also seen very poor rates of successful 2-day Prime delivery. Often indeed, the item ships about 5 minutes before the "Item will arrive by 8pm today" commitment (and that message will continue to show well after 8pm and the item has not arrived). I order things like food from Amazon (Soylent), and I have relied on the shipping. But it is awful. I would say about 50% of the time my package arrives late, by a day or even 3-4 days. It's insane to pay $100 a year for a service that absolutely does not meet its promises. Just call it 4 day delivery and we'll be good. Amazon Prime is a scam. I'm a loyal customer because there are few alternatives, but they do not deliver the service that you pay for.
vm 9y ago
What?? Amazon Prime is a killer value! Netflix is $11/month and Spotify is $10/month. Sure, those services are definitely better than Prime Video and Music, but I still use Amazon's offerings a similar amount so the $13/month bundle feels like a great value at 40% lower cost. And this doesn't even count the services I don't use like free Kindle books or Twitch game discounts. Not to mention the faster delivery times... The real benefit there has been changing the way I shop and think about shopping. I think I save massive amounts of time by almost never going to stores again. Even if the time savings is moot in the end, the psychological benefit of never having to go to stores has been wonderful. How much is that worth? I don't know, but it feels like almost zero cost given the value I get from Prime Video and Music (again, I admit that those services aren't "great").
- kodablah 9y ago
  > Sure, those services are definitely better than Prime Video and Music Not for me wrt Netflix vs Prime Video. The latter is much better if you value movies over shows and quantity over quality especially for older movies.
- maldusiecle 9y ago
  This is actually my biggest problem with Prime: it feels like a bunch of substandard services, most of which I don't need, bundled together. If I'm not going to use free Kindle books or Twitch discounts (and I'm not), their value to me is $0. If Amazon Music doesn't have the songs I want to hear, and I have to keep paying for Spotify for those, then its value to me is $0. Prime's value is mostly free shipping, and it feels like the rest is just promotional fluff (maybe with the exception of Prime Video, which has some well-regarded original content).
  - Nadya 9y ago
    But it's all shades of gray. While you might like Prime Video - others may find it useless but enjoy the free Kindle books or Twitch discounts or other included offers. Personally, I order enough things throughout a year that Prime pays for itself in shipping costs. Any additional items are just that to me. Nice to have, especially since I'm not being charged extra, but are not why I'm paying.
Chaebixi 9y ago
> From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down Also they push Amazon Logistics on you, which is terrible. I've had so many problems with them. The worst thing is they removed the option to "de-prioritize" them for your deliveries, like you can with any other problem delivery service. So you're SOL if you, for instance, USPS knows how to do its job in your area.
- stinky613 9y ago
  USPS forges delivery times to avoid being caught delivering a Prime package late[1] (don't get me wrong, though; AMZL sucks) [1] http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns-amazon-customers-will-get-free-stuff-if-mail-is-delivered-late http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns... N.B. I've personally had this happen a couple times now.
nunez 9y ago
We live less than 5 miles away from a major distribution center; same day is offered for just about everything, with everything else reliably arriving 1-2 days post order. However, 2-day shipping is the only option available for most other places. I can see how Prime isn't as good of a deal for places like that.

reificator 9y ago

Denver Metro here, I don't think Amazon have missed a two day window in at least a year. I've only had two misses in over three years of having a Prime sub.

matte_black 9y ago

I personally don’t even track my delivery times. I order things off amazon so quickly that most of the time when I get a package I had forgotten what I ordered, let alone exactly when I ordered it. It’s nice that packages come in two days but I often don’t really need something that fast so I don’t pay attention. I will continue paying happily for Prime.

rando444 9y ago
I'm failing to see how your anecdote about how you're happy to pay for something you admittedly don't care about is relevant.
- zhjansbnas 9y ago
  Amazon, when considering whether to raise the price of prime, probably gathered a lot of information about how consumers would respond. Matte_black’s experience mirrors my own. When I order something from Prime with 2-day shipping, it’s sometimes late, and sometimes shows up the next morning. It’s fast enough on average that I feel the price is easily worth it. If I really need something ASAP I’ll pay the extra few dollars for the one-day shipping (which would cost a lot more without Prime). They’d have to raise the price a lot more to lose me as a customer. If there are a lot of customers like me and matte_black, it makes sense for them to raise the price. By the way, if you do complain about late packages, they will give you a month of free Prime for each complaint or even put $10 as a credit in your account. So if it’s worth your time to complain, you could get Prime for free. It’s kind of like cloud provider who breaks SLA.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  In addition, there's also a very clear contradiction in their statement, specifically how they "often don’t really need something that fast" but yet they will continue paying happily for Prime. Maybe they only care about the other Prime services and not the shipping?

socalnate1 9y ago

I've had almost the exact opposite experience. I often get Prime deliveries the next day, even when I order in the late afternoon or evening. I'm in Southern California, so maybe the greater density here means different systems ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

cortesoft 9y ago
Also in SoCal, I get a mix of both. Usually two days, sometimes one, sometimes it says it is out for delivery on that second day but then they end up not delivering it. From what I understand, the Amazon delivery people are contractors who are paid to deliver as much as they can. If they can't get to everything that day before 9pm, you don't get your package. It has only really hurt me a couple of times where I ordered something for a trip, and it didn't arrive in time.
AlexB138 9y ago
It seems like it's regional, based on replies here. It seems everyone on the west coast gets pretty good delivery times. I'm in a major metro on the east coast, and my experience is shared by a lot of my friends.

strunz 9y ago

I'm going to guess you're in the minority.

icelancer 9y ago

Prime has only gotten better in my area, but that's a little biased, since I'm in Seattle. They can definitely jack up rates here with no issue.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fiter 9y ago

Sometimes I comparison shop at other online stores. It has not been uncommon to find the cost for an item at another store plus shipping is equal to or less than buying it with Amazon Prime. Am I really paying for movies and music which I hardly use?

criddell 9y ago
Amazon has been so consistent for me and given me such great customer service that I still buy from them even when they aren't the lowest price. I'm a pretty loyal customer.

lutorm 9y ago

In Hawaii, Prime isn't two day, it's "free shipping within sorta 5-7 business days, for most of the stuff marked Prime". And even that has gotten unreliable. When there's a range of delivery dates specified, it often seems designed to show up on the very last day of that range. A significant fraction of the time they haven't even shipped the thing by the first day of the delivery estimate. There are also an increasing amount of items that say they are Prime but when you try to buy them, it says "it can't be shipped to your address". Sometimes it's understandable, like things that are very heavy or hazardous, like Li-ion batteries. Other times it's completely incomprehensible, like 1/8" pipe fittings. And Amazon customer service can't give any info, they just say "sorry, we're not going to be able to send you that thing."

underbluewaters 9y ago
I couldn't get them to send me an xbox controller in Hawaii. It's just infuriating. They could at least have the decency to let you filter items you can't get. The mismatch between their listed terms and what you actually get as a Prime customer in Hawaii is borderline fraudulent. I'm considering putting together and sharing a script that could check your order history and delivery dates. They tend to give a free month of credit for late deliveries, but if I could show them "Well out of 12 months I've had late deliveries every month this year" I should just get the service for free.
- matchbok 9y ago
  You cannot expect a company to cater to such a small population. You choose to live there, you choose the consequences.
  - underbluewaters 9y ago
    I can absolutely expect them to honor the terms that they themselves defined for a service that costs more than $100/year.
    - EpicEng 9y ago

ng12 9y ago

> Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products This is the only thing I worry about. Granted, I don't think I've personally ever gotten a knock-off but the fact that the possibility exists makes me much more cautious about ordering from amazon.

jstarfish 9y ago
Some items are much more prone to being counterfeit than others. If you order a Lego set, you're going to get a Lego set. But when it comes to industrial stuff, I can't even shop there anymore. Anything labeled as OEM (batteries, auto parts, etc) is a prime candidate for counterfeiting.
- patrickxie 9y ago
  where can one find a trustworthy website for batteries?

asafira 9y ago

Unlike the other comments, I'd like to point out that I have had a similar experience with Amazon's 2-day shipping. I would claim that 1 in 3 packages have an issue of some sort that causes a delay.

underbluewaters 9y ago

Amazon shipping can be terrible depending on where you live. Here in Hawaii they claim 3-7 business days which they regularly don't meet. The pattern I've noticed is that they wait until the very last moment to ship and then use priority overnight to try and meet that deadline. I think they do this to try and pool shipments but it never works out that way. I count on all orders taking a full two weeks to arrive. I'd cancel Prime in a heartbeat if I had a remotely comparable alternative. They use to provide value in terms of making it easy to pick good products but the 3rd party seller thing has made this more difficult.

intermittently 9y ago

+1 on more late Prime deliveries than there used to be. FWIW, you can request a free month of Prime anytime you get a Prime order late (up to 12 times per subscription renewal, from what I've read). I've done it a few times already; once you find the customer service page, it's pretty painless.

stinky613 9y ago
Awesome tip, but I feel like I'm still shit out of luck with any Amazon purchase sent via USPS. Their drivers mark all their Amazon Prime packages as delivered if it's end of day. I've had multiple Amazon deliveries that were "delivered at 7:59pm at normal mail reception desk" that they then delivered the following day EDIT: Just want to make it clear that this isn't my isolated experience -- http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns-amazon-customers-will-get-free-stuff-if-mail-is-delivered-late http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns...
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Yeah same here - except with fedex who wont even try to deliver. They'll just sneak up and leave tags saying they attempted. When I asked amazon about it they really didn't want to do much but I was able to get them to block using their own drivers who were completely clueless on what an entrance to a building looks like (tip: it's not the emergency exit door...)

monksy 9y ago

> From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. I'm noticing that too. If I'm going to go with standard shipping, they'll wait on it for 2 weeks and then try to ship it the day before the end of the delievery estimation. (I live in Chicago, so theres absolutely no reason to do that other than spite)

turtlebits 9y ago

I've only had 2 shipping delay issues with Amazon Prime in the last 4 years. Recently the option for 1 day shipping for a minimal fee or free has only made it better in my eyes. That said, I do live in the Greater Seattle area.

lancepioch 9y ago

Only a couple times over years have I gotten packages late. Contacting Amazon about it, they gave me a month of prime each time too. I live almost in the middle of nowhere, except that I'm less than an hour away from a major shipping distribution center.

robteix 9y ago

Here in my area, 2-day Prime means 3-4 days. Their guaranteed delivery date is always 4 days away, but about half the time you'll get it in 3. But they still call it "two-day delivery"

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dawnerd 9y ago
I think it now means two days from when they hand it off to usps/ups/fedex. There has been considerable delay recently from when the package is "shipped" and when it's handed over. Probably due to them using their own trucks and simply using the other carriers as the last mile.

skynetv2 9y ago

I barely had issues with 2-day, 1-day or even same day Prime (not Prime Now) deliveries in the Sacramento area. Probably becasue we have a huge UPS & Amazon hub here. once in a while they will miss the window but will notify right away and deliver it within the next day, pretty early in the day

greymeister 9y ago

When the courier service has switched from Fedex to OnTrac, my previous experience of 2 days or less went to 3 days minimum with the occasional "Whoops we gave it to the wrong person" thrown in for good measure.

cryptoz 9y ago

In both Oakland and Colorado, I have also seen very poor rates of successful 2-day Prime delivery. Often indeed, the item ships about 5 minutes before the "Item will arrive by 8pm today" commitment (and that message will continue to show well after 8pm and the item has not arrived). I order things like food from Amazon (Soylent), and I have relied on the shipping. But it is awful. I would say about 50% of the time my package arrives late, by a day or even 3-4 days. It's insane to pay $100 a year for a service that absolutely does not meet its promises. Just call it 4 day delivery and we'll be good. Amazon Prime is a scam. I'm a loyal customer because there are few alternatives, but they do not deliver the service that you pay for.

vm 9y ago

What?? Amazon Prime is a killer value! Netflix is $11/month and Spotify is $10/month. Sure, those services are definitely better than Prime Video and Music, but I still use Amazon's offerings a similar amount so the $13/month bundle feels like a great value at 40% lower cost. And this doesn't even count the services I don't use like free Kindle books or Twitch game discounts. Not to mention the faster delivery times... The real benefit there has been changing the way I shop and think about shopping. I think I save massive amounts of time by almost never going to stores again. Even if the time savings is moot in the end, the psychological benefit of never having to go to stores has been wonderful. How much is that worth? I don't know, but it feels like almost zero cost given the value I get from Prime Video and Music (again, I admit that those services aren't "great").

kodablah 9y ago
> Sure, those services are definitely better than Prime Video and Music Not for me wrt Netflix vs Prime Video. The latter is much better if you value movies over shows and quantity over quality especially for older movies.
maldusiecle 9y ago
This is actually my biggest problem with Prime: it feels like a bunch of substandard services, most of which I don't need, bundled together. If I'm not going to use free Kindle books or Twitch discounts (and I'm not), their value to me is $0. If Amazon Music doesn't have the songs I want to hear, and I have to keep paying for Spotify for those, then its value to me is $0. Prime's value is mostly free shipping, and it feels like the rest is just promotional fluff (maybe with the exception of Prime Video, which has some well-regarded original content).
- Nadya 9y ago
  But it's all shades of gray. While you might like Prime Video - others may find it useless but enjoy the free Kindle books or Twitch discounts or other included offers. Personally, I order enough things throughout a year that Prime pays for itself in shipping costs. Any additional items are just that to me. Nice to have, especially since I'm not being charged extra, but are not why I'm paying.

Chaebixi 9y ago

> From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down Also they push Amazon Logistics on you, which is terrible. I've had so many problems with them. The worst thing is they removed the option to "de-prioritize" them for your deliveries, like you can with any other problem delivery service. So you're SOL if you, for instance, USPS knows how to do its job in your area.

stinky613 9y ago
USPS forges delivery times to avoid being caught delivering a Prime package late[1] (don't get me wrong, though; AMZL sucks) [1] http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns-amazon-customers-will-get-free-stuff-if-mail-is-delivered-late http://www.cbs46.com/story/36856477/mail-carriers-usps-warns... N.B. I've personally had this happen a couple times now.

nunez 9y ago

We live less than 5 miles away from a major distribution center; same day is offered for just about everything, with everything else reliably arriving 1-2 days post order. However, 2-day shipping is the only option available for most other places. I can see how Prime isn't as good of a deal for places like that.